Stations 3-4: Peter denies Jesus

This morning we continue in the season of Lent by traveling with Jesus on the stations of the wondrous cross.  Last week we were with Jesus on the Mount of Olives and at Judas' betrayal.  This morning we journey with Jesus before the Sanhedrin and at Peter's denial. 

            In one of his many books Frederic Beuchner had this to say about our season of Lent.     “After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus.  During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.”  This morning we witness two people coming to terms with what it means to be themselves; Peter in one way and Jesus in another.  Listen closely, and perhaps we might learn what it means to be more fully ourselves. 

Luke 22:54-71

                ⁵⁴ Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. ⁵⁵ But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. ⁵⁶ A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, "This man was with him." ⁵⁷ But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said. ⁵⁸ A little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." "Man, I am not!" Peter replied. ⁵⁹ About an hour later another asserted, "Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean." ⁶⁰ Peter replied, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about!" Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. ⁶¹ The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times." ⁶² And he went outside and wept bitterly.

             ⁶³ The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. ⁶⁴ They blindfolded him and demanded, "Prophesy! Who hit you?" ⁶⁵ And they said many other insulting things to him. ⁶⁶ At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. ⁶⁷ "If you are the Christ," they said, "tell us." Jesus answered, "If I tell you, you will not believe me, ⁶⁸ and if I asked you, you would not answer. ⁶⁹ But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God." ⁷⁰ They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" He replied, "You are right in saying I am." ⁷¹ Then they said, "Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips."

The way in...

            Have you ever stood before others and said you were or were not going to do something?  From small to great, we do this all the time.  I'll pick you up at 6:00 so we can go to the movie.  Yes, I can be at that meeting.  I'll be in the stands at your soccer game.  I'll finish this report by Tuesday.  I'm going to quit eating sugar.  I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife...  I'll never pick up the bottle again.  Every day is full of commitments.  Most of them we keep, sometimes we fail.  Peter, in typical Peter fashion, made a great commitment to follow Jesus to prison and even death and with great promises come the potential for great fall.

Peter's Denial

            “Then siezing him, they led him away to the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance, but...”  So far Peter is keeping his commitment.  Despite the abandonment of all the others, Peter remains true, “but when they kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them.  A servant girl saw him seated in there in the firelight.  She looked closely at him and said, “This man was with him.” 

            It's interesting, isn't it, how what is a privilege one moment can become an accusation in another.  Jesus called Peter to leave the fishing nets to be with him.  Jesus invited Peter to leave the boat and stand on the water with him.  Jesus took Peter as one of the three to be with him on the mountain.  Being with Jesus had always been a great honor, a great privilege and a joy... until now.  “This man was with him.” 

            It is amazing how quickly the brain can process information.  In an instant, less than a second, two roads diverged in the woods for Peter.  Were he to agree with the servant girl, or simply say nothing then Peter's path would be the same as that of Jesus -  arrest, trial, beatings and most likely death.  Down the other path, if he were able to pull it off, Peter could remain free.  All it required was a little denial.  Peter, he chose the path more taken.  “Woman, I don't know him.”    

            Have you ever denied your association with someone?  Has someone ever denies you?  I asked my friend Rod this question and without much hesitation he told me when he was in the 5^th grade his family moved from Oregon to Yakima.  They got there in the summer and he quickly met a couple of kids his age in the neighborhood.  They played together the rest of the summer until September rolled around and it was time to go to school.  The three of them met that morning and began to walk to school.  Like any kid entering a new school Rod was nervous, but he was comforted by the fact that he at least had these two friends.  However, when the got within sight of the school his buddies stopped and said, “Okay Rod, you're going to have to wait here while we go ahead.”  When Rod asked why.  They shrugged as if it were common knowledge, “You're new.  We can't act like we know you.”  Denial on the first day of 5^th grade. 

            At least Rod only had it happen once, Peter doubled and then tripled down.  When another recognized him and said, “You also are one of them.”  Peter exclaimed, “Man, I am not!”  And even when another guy called him out because of his Galilean accent Peter replied, “Man, I just don't know what you're talking about.” 

            Three opportunities to confess Jesus and three failures.  Peter, oh Peter, bless his heart.  He lay in a fog of denial pretending not only that he didn't know Jesus, but in so doing pretending that he was not himself.  And then something painful awoke him from that fog.  Something pulled him out of the gray realm of denial.  First a rooster crowed.  Then we read this sentence, “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.”

Jesus' look       

            “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.”  What do you imagine Jesus' face looked like?    We don't know how far, but let's say Jesus is about thirty yards away.  He is on the other side of dozens of people and maybe even through a doorway – a little ways off, but close enough to see Jesus' face.  Think about it for a moment and try to imagine Jesus staring at Peter.  How do you imagine he looked?

            Was he shocked?  Big eyes, hands splayed out and saying with his expression, “Peter, of all people, how in the world could you do this to me?”  Do you imagine that Jesus was shocked?

            Maybe he was angry.  Do you imagine Jesus eyes narrowed and brow furrowed as he stared Peter down through the crowd and smoke from the fires, pointing his finger and saying, “Peter, I am so pissed at you right now.” 

            Perhaps you imagine Jesus and see him as smug.  Arms crossed, his mouth is pressed and turned to the side as if to say, “I told you so.  This is exactly what I told you would happen.  I knew you'd fail me.” 

            Or maybe, and this might be the most common, maybe you think of Jesus and imagine him disappointed.  Do his eyes droop, shoulders sag, and then shake from side to side saying, “Peter, how could you?  I expected so much more from you.”  Was Jesus' look towards Peter one of disappointment?

            I think it is important to know how you imagine Jesus looked at Peter because there is a very good chance that it is similar to how you imagine Jesus might look at you?  How do you imagine Jesus looks at you?   

Gran Gran

            It wasn't so much a denial as it was a failure.  Of my four grandparents, I was perhaps closest to my Gran Gran.  We called her Gran Gran because she didn't want to be called Granny.  When we stayed at their house I was almost always the first one up so that I could go down to the kitchen where she'd fix me bacon, eggs and toast – eggs sunny side up.  We would then sit side by side and look out the window like it was a television where she'd set up a playground for birds.  She loved birds and we'd sit there and watch the chickadees, wrens, sparrows, bluejays, starlings and my favorite – cardinals swoop in and out of the feeders. 

            As a former English teacher Gran Gran was a lady who loved words.  She passed that love on to us by taking us to the library and buying us a new book for us every birthday and Christmas.  It is because of her that I first came to know CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and so many others.  She was also a Presbyterian who sometimes wasn't sure what to do with our baptist family.  Though she never said so, I think she secretly prayed that her grandchildren might come back to the fold.  Imagine her joy when I told her I'd joined a Presbyterian church.  That joy was doubled when she learned I was going to a Presbyterian seminary, in the south no less. 

            Erin and I were in Atlanta for a little over a year when Gran Gran's health began to fail.  It was a slow decline that had been coming for several years.  It was about this time of the year, this month in fact, when we got a call from my mother saying that Gran Gran was back in the hospital.  I asked Mom how bad she was.  Mom wasn't sure.  I asked if she thought we should come up.  “No,” she replied, she thought we could wait til the weekend.  Erin was teaching.  I had class.  That'd be the easier path so I said we'd be up on Friday.  That was a Tuesday.  Mom called on Wednesday to say that Gran Gran died that night.

            Oddly, I didn't cry.  Looking back I think I was in a kind of fog.  We got packed up, made it to Woodbury by lunch on Thursday.  Receiving of friends was that night at the funeral home just two blocks from my grandparent's house.  I stood with my family in front of the coffin while people passed.  Some were familiar but most I didn't know.  The line thinned and I went to find the restroom, but before I got there it hit me.  It wasn't a rooster crowing or a ghost or even a word that someone said, more like a wave.  I stopped and leaned against the wall and began to weep.  I wept not only because I'd never get to look at cardinals or share books or that she wouldn't get to see me graduate seminary, but I also wept because I had failed her.  I had a chance to come and see her before she died and I chose to stay in Atlanta.  How could I have been so selfish?  She had been so good to me and I'd ignored her.  She'd always wanted to see me, but I had refused to see her.  Most of my tears were of grief but they were bitterly laced with the reality of my failure.

            And Peter?  He too went outside and wept bitterly.  Have you ever wept bitterly?       

This word bitter is Mara in Hebrew.  It is the name Naomi took when she returned to Bethlehem with Ruth because she'd gone away with a husband and two sons only to return with neither.  She felt like a failure and it was a bitter feeling.  Have you ever felt this way?

The way out...

            Do you remember the quote from the beginning, those words of Buechner?  “...Jesus spent forty days asking what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.”  When was Peter more himself?  When he was promising Jesus he'd never dessert him?  When he was cutting off the soldier's ear?  When he was following Jesus in the shadows?  When he was denying Jesus three times?  In reality, it wasn't so much Jesus that Peter was denying, it was himself.  And this, I think is what the look of Jesus revealed.  Notice again what the text says, “The Lord, looked straight at Peter.” 

            Do you remember the story of the rich man who came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life?  “You know the commandments,” Jesus answered.  “...all of these I have kept since I was a boy,” the man replied.  And then, before telling him there was one thing he lacked, before telling this rich young man he needed to sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow him, Mark writes this great phrase, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” (Mark 10:21)  Jesus looked straight at this man and loved him.  The word for looked is the exact same word that Luke uses to describe how Jesus looked at Peter.

             

The way out

            Erin found me in the hall and held me while I cried.  It seemed like a long time, but when the tears finally ceased I felt different and I knew the truth.  If Gran Gran could have seen me then there would have been one look on her face and in her eyes.  I can tell you now it would not have been shock or anger or smugness or even disappointment.  No.  I believe she would have looked with the same gaze that Jesus fixed upon the rich young man and he fixed upon Peter.  It would have been a look of unconditional love. 

            How does God look at you?  Can you feel it?  Can you see it?  Like Peter God is able to look not just to us, but through us.  At first it is bitterly shocking; but then, then the morning comes.